US President Joe Biden says he is under "no illusions" about the difficulty of getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, ABC News reported.
Biden says he would be willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un under the right conditions, as the country works to denuclearise the Korean peninsula.
Speaking to media with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday, the pair injected fresh urgency into attempts to engage North Korea in dialogue over its nuclear weapons.
Both said the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula was their goal.
The US President said he was "under no illusions" about the difficulty of getting North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal after his predecessors failed.
Biden said he would be willing to meet Kim under the right conditions — if there was a commitment from the North Korean leader "that there's a discussion about his nuclear arsenal", and that his advisers first met with their North Korean counterparts to lay the groundwork.
"I would not do what had been done in the recent past; I would not give him all he's looking for — international recognition as legitimate and allow him to move in the direction of appearing to be more … serious about what he wasn't at all serious about," he said.
Biden's comments appeared to reflect a shift in his thinking.
The White House had said in March it was not his intention to meet with Kim.
HJ/PR
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